Press

Photo Credit: Catherine Fitts / Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

November 3, 2017

With “Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived,” Christopher J. Scalia and Edward Whelan have given us a treasure that captures Justice Antonin Scalia’s brilliance, wit, faith, humility and wide range of knowledge. When I read this collection of his speeches, edited by the justice’s son and one of his law clerks, I feel like Scalia is in the room with me. Taken together, the speeches are a book-length argument for constitutional originalism and for Scalia’s understanding of the role of judges in the United States. Anyone who wants to understand Scalia as a person and as a judicial philosopher should start by reading this book.

November 1, 2017

“This marvelous book surely will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the mind of this great jurist and conservative thinker. But I would go further and say that it should be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the mind of a great American, a figure so important to our history that his passing influenced the presidential election held months later. If “Scalia Speaks” can be said to have one fundamental flaw—one shared with the man’s life—it is that it ends too soon.”

October 30, 2017

“Written in the Scalia style — learned but streetwise, powerfully argumentative yet seductively commonsensical — Scalia Speaks is the closest thing to an autobiography we will get from this jurist and writer of supreme intellectual and literary gifts. Before audiences of high-schoolers and turkey-hunters, the justice mixed his powers of suasion with anecdotes from his Queens youth to educate and enlighten, celebrate and lament, poke and prod. “I will probably be telling you some stuff you do not want to hear,” he cautioned Congress’s Tea Party Caucus in a 2011 event open to all House members. “That is part of my charm.”

October 30, 2017

Reading “Scalia Speaks” — the marvelous collection of his speeches, lovingly compiled by his son and a former law clerk — brought Nino back to life for me. His words, even when read, are provocations to argue, disagree and think. They cannot be read passively. They cry out for dialogue. They demand answers — or surrender.

October 12th, 2017

There is much to learn in these speeches about the Constitution, Western civilization, the intersection of faith and public policy, American history, and, of course, the law. But the thread that connects all is Scalia’s bone-deep appreciation for the primacy of character. Again and again he stressed that a decent society ultimately rests not on laws or customs or even history but on the character of the people. He gave many speeches at universities, law schools, and (if one of his nine children or numerous grandchildren was in the graduating class) at high schools.

October 2, 2017

“In decades of public speeches at home and abroad, Scalia educated, challenged, and entertained countless audiences. Now anyone who wants to benefit from the late justice’s wit and wisdom can do so with Scalia Speaks.…[An] indispensable book.”

October 2, 2017

In a sunny den in McLean, Va., Maureen and Christopher Scalia sit side-by-side on a comfy couch. He co-edited Scalia Speaks, an anthology of his father’s speeches on a variety of subjects,and he ranks eighth in birth order out of the nine Scalia children. She is the mother of those nine children, and the widow of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — a conservative icon, bon vivant, music lover and witty observer of law and life.